Hopping for Your Life
by betawho
Summary: "Hopping. Remember hopping for your life? No?" (Based on the 2005 Doctor Who Children in Need Special.)


"I don't think I can keep doing this!" Rose yelled back as she barreled forward, struggling to keep her balance.

"Just keep going!" the Doctor's gruff voice yelled behind her. She twisted to see, not easy when hopping on one foot, and found him right behind her, his long, athletic leg taking long bounds in his blue jeans, his buzz cut hair much less bouncy than her own, which kept whipping into her eyes and stinging.

She turned back around and hopped. Her left leg was chained to her waist, bent up behind her. Their alien captors had seemed to think that would hobble them enough to keep them from going anywhere.

She grinned fiercely and hopped harder. Her left butt cheek hurt. She was sure she was going to sprain her ankle and she could hear the howls of their pursuers gaining louder behind them.

"Quick, over the creek!" the Doctor's husky voice said, right behind her.

The Tardis was standing on the opposite bank, a series of large stepping stones were all that separated them from freedom. Stones that had been slippery enough with two legs.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding!" Rose stared in disgust, wondering if the creek was shallow enough to just hop through.

A spear sliced through the air and embedded in the loamy ground just beside her. She jumped sideways instinctively, and rammed into the Doctor. He was all muscle and barely shifted. He grabbed her with big hands and set her back on her foot.

"No time for flirting," he said. "Follow me!"

He, maddeningly, hopped right over the stepping stones, without putting his foot wrong.

A spear streaked across the creek and thudded into the Tardis door, bouncing off. The door opened and Jack peered out, looking both ways. He looked beyond them at the approaching horde then glared at the Doctor as he hopped across the stones.

"Where have you two been?!" he demanded testily.

"Open the door and get out of the way!" the Doctor bellowed, driving forward, his one leg working like a piston.

Rose stared at the stones, hopping lightly to stay upright, she glanced at the swiftly moving creek, then back, hair whipping, at the approaching aliens.

They did not look happy. That's what they get for bringing down the local god figure.

She grimaced, gritted her teeth, and shouted, "Wait for me!"

She windmilled her arms and hopped to the first stone, skidded, jumped immediately to the second, off balance, slipped again, then just progressively fell forward, one stone at a time, furiously working to keep her foot under her, slipping on each rocky surface, screaming in her head to get some new shoes with more traction.

Then stumbled, floundered, and splashed her way to the opposite bank.

She grabbed the streamside grasses in both hands, wet to the calf, and hauled herself up onto the bank. She rolled, (barely missing getting skewered by a spear that thumped down right where she'd been lying) then scrambled to her foot and hopped like mad for the Tardis.

The Doctor reached it and grabbed the door frame for balance. He waved her forward. "Come on! Hop to it!" he yelled.

She bounced past him into the Tardis in a furious rush, banging up the grated ramp, she could hear him clanging up right behind her.

They both collapsed sideways on the floor next to the console, careful of their bound legs. They lay there panting, eyes checking each other over carefully, catching their breath. The chains around their waists and one ankle clinked on the Tardis grating. Rose's foot was asleep.

The Tardis dematerialization noise sounded, and they both looked up. Jack stood leaning against the console, arms crossed, twirling the Doctor's sonic screwdriver in one hand where the Doctor had loaned it to him earlier.

He stared down at them, a naughty smile on his mouth and a twinkle in his eye.

"If I'd known you two were into bondage I'd ..."

"Shut up!" they both yelled simultaneously.

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